Election Surprise Becomes Official Political Marvel Gates Will Challenge Lewis For Comptroller's Job

Official election results released Wednesday by the state division of elections officially gave Gates, a candidate who never campaigned, the GOP nomination in the comptroller's race, edging Tallahassee attorney Craig Kiser by 7,645 votes.

The margin was wide enough to force Kiser to and, albeit unenthusiastically, throw his support to Gates, who is clerk of the court in the Panhandle's Gulf County.

While Kiser traveled widely and spent about $36,000, Gates made a concerted effort to do nothing to get elected other than talk to reporters. He never advertised, he refused to accept campaign contributions and, other than the qualifying fee, spent only $225 in the campaign for photographs.

Kiser said he was deeply disappointed.

''It is a sad commentary on Florida's electorate if the reason they voted the way they did was lack of knowledge,'' he said. ''If the vote represented a choice made by voters, that's their prerogative, but I don't know how it could have been a knowledgeable choice if the man didn't campaign.''

Although Gates had a 2 percent lead over Kiser at the close of the Sept. 2 primary, the race was too close to call because more than 75,000 absentee ballots had not been counted.

Kiser was relying on the absentee ballots to close the gap. Had the absentees moved him much closer, Kiser planned to challenge the election based on the returns in his home base of Leon County.

That's because Leon County was the site of one of the worst election fiascoes in the state. Voting booths were broken and voters were turned away; votes cast for one candidate were credited to another; and Republicans were able to vote for Democrats and vice versa.

Kiser conceded Wednesday that the Republican vote in Leon, a heavily Democratic county, wouldn't have been enough to make up his deficit or even come close.

Kiser, who twice served as Lewis' general counsel, repeatedly attacked his old boss while on the campaign trail. But if Lewis was glad to be rid of him, campaign manager Stan Adkins wasn't admitting it Wednesday.

''It really doesn't change anything for us. Our strategy has been to run our own race and not focus on anyone else,'' Adkins said.

Gates most likely will have a toughter time with Lewis than he had with Kiser. Lewis had held office since 1974 and has almost $1 million in his campaign warchest.